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Infant Baptism. 



INFANT BAPTISM 



ORDINANCE OF THE GOSPEL. 



By Key. JOTHAM SEWALL. 



APPROVED BY THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION. 




BOSTON: 

MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETY, 

Depository No. 13 Cor> t hill. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by the 

Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 






CAMBRIDGE '. 

Allen and Farnham, Printers. 



Note. — The following essay is the substance of 
four sermons prepared and preached to the people of 
my present charge, and also to a neighboring church. 
Some of the hearers expressed a wish that they 
should be given to the public through the press ; and 
I have been disposed to comply with this wish, 
especially as some points connected with the subject, 
which tend to illustrate it, are not presented in other 
treatises of the kind. And should this humble effort 
be the means of confirming the faith of any of the 
people of God in an important truth, and of stimulat- 
ing them to a more faithful discharge of parental 
duties, the labor involved will be abundantly repaid. 

J. SEW ALL. 

North Granville, N. Y., March 28, 1859. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

Church defined. — Jewish church formed. — That church in 
the nation, but seldom embraced the whole. — The 
Christian church a continuation of the Jewish. — Proof. — 
Language of prophecy. — The work which Christ came 
to perform for that church. — The action of the Apostolic 
Council. — The reasoning of Paul in the eleventh of 
Romans. 

CHAPTER II. 

The covenant with Abraham constitutes the charter of the 
church's rights. — This charter not annulled or altered at 
the commencement of the Christian dispensation. — An- 
nulling the ceremonial law did not affect it. — Why the 
covenant with Abraham was sealed. — A seal still needful. 
— Why circumcision was abolished. — Baptism substituted 
for circumcision. 



VI CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE III. 

Objections. — Apostles required belief before baptism. — 
Those who had been circumcised required to be baptized. 
— Further arguments. — Christ and his apostles taught 
and practised just as we should have expected if children 
were still regarded as in covenant with their parents, 
and just as we should not have expected on the contrary 
supposition. — No complaints were made by the converted 
Jews. — Testimony from history. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Relation of baptized children to the church. — Utility of 
Infant Baptism. — It tends to increase the faithfulness of 
parents; to secure to children the prayers and counsels 
of the church; and to soothe the grief occasioned by 
their death. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



CHAPTER I. 

CHURCH DEFINED. — JEWISH CHURCH FORMED. — 
LIMITED. — JEWISH AXD CHRISTIAN CHURCH THE 
SAME. 

An important feature of the government 
of God is placed before us in the passage, 
" The mercy of the Lord is from everlast- 
ing to everlasting upon them that fear him, 
and his righteousness unto children's chil- 
dren ; to such as keep his covenant, and to 
those that remember his commandments to 
do them." (Psalms 103 : 17-18.) On the 
principle here expressed, an institution was 
founded, under th former dispensation, in 



X INFANT BAPTISM. 

which, by a religious rite, children were 
consecrated to God. And the same prin- 
ciple, under the present, involves the pro- 
priety and duty of a similar consecration in 
a solemn religious ordinance. 

In our view, Infant Baptism occupies a 
place in the system of God's mercy to men, 
which invests it with unspeakable impor- 
tance ; and the best good of the church and 
the world, we think, requires that it be un- 
derstood and appreciated. Christians, we 
know, who are equally pious and conscien- 
tious in their opinions, may differ on this 
subject. We love our brethren who dissent 
from us respecting it. We cheerfully accord 
to them the right of private judgment. It 
is man's inalienable birthright, — an un- 
questionable attribute of intelligent exist- 
ence. And should these pages fall under 
the eye of any such, — or any who have 
doubted whether infant baptism is an or- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 6 

dinance of the gospel, — they are requested 
kindly and cordially to weigh what may 
now be offered. Possibly, there are views 
of the subject which they have not taken, 
or facts and arguments possessing greater 
importance than they have supposed. Truth 
and duty lie on one side or the other of the 
question now to be considered ; and it is 
certainly important to understand which. 

The common belief of those who reject 
the doctrine of infant baptism, is, that the 
Christian church was instituted and organ- 
ized at the commencement of the present 
dispensation, and that, hence, all its ordi- 
nances are to be found in positive New Tes- 
tament enactments. If they are right in 
the premises, they are undoubtedly right in 
the conclusion. But, in our view, they are 
wrong in the premises, and hence the con- 
clusion is erroneous. 

The point, then, which first demands our 



4 INFANT BAPTISM. 

attention is, Is the Christian church a con- 
tinuation of the Jewish church ? This 
question deserves full and careful attention ; 
for, in fact, it is the hinge on which the 
whole argument turns. 

We here take the affirmative, which we 
think capable of being sustained beyond 
successful contradiction. But before exhib- 
iting the proofs, it is proper to raise and 
briefly answer the question, What is a 
church ? 

"We answer : A church is a company of 
persons whom God takes into covenant with 
himself, as his professed servants and wor- 
shippers, securing to them certain privileges 
and blessings. This was the idea under 
the former dispensation. Such a commu- 
nity was instituted in the family of Abra- 
ham. He was required to separate himself 
from the world, and be a worshipper and 
servant of Jehovah. Religious institutions 






INFANT BAPTISM. O 

were to be observed by him and his house- 
hold, and on condition of obedience, certain 
privileges and blessings were secured to 
him, some of which were temporal, but the 
more important of which were spiritual. 
In process of time, a code of laws was 
given to his descendants for the regulation 
of their civil and religious affairs ; a regu- 
lar priesthood was instituted ; and a sys- 
tem of religious instruction, and more of 
set and outward formality in religious or- 
dinances and worship, was introduced. 
When these laws were propounded to 
them from Sinai, they said, " All that the 
Lord hath said will we do." (Ex. 19 : 
8.) To render their engagement to be the 
Lord's still more formal and solemn, Moses 
wrote the law and ordinances which they 
had received on Sinai in a book, which was 
termed "the book of the covenant." This 
he read in the audience of the people, and 



6 INFANT BAPTISM. 

they replied, "All that the Lord hath spo- 
ken will we do, and be obedient." To seal 
this solemn engagement, "Moses took the 
blood [of sacrifices which had been offered] 
and sprinkled it on the people, and said, 
Behold the blood of the covenant which the 
Lord hath made with you concerning 
all these words." (Ex. 24: 5-8.) Here 
was a solemn engagement by which the 
nation became the professed servants and 
worshippers of Jehovah. And, toward the 
close of Moses' life, when a strict adherence 
to the divine commands and ordinances 
was enjoined, he said, "This day the Lord 
thy God hath commanded thee to do 
these statutes and judgments; thou shalt 
therefore keep and do them with all thy 
heart and with all thy soul." He then 
added, " Thou hast avouched the Lord this 
day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, 
and to keep his statutes, and his command- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 7 

ments, and his judgments, and to hearken 
unto his voice ; and the Lord hath avouched 
thee this day to be his peculiar people, as 
he hath promised thee, and that thou 
shouldest keep all his commandments." 
(Deut. 26 : 16-18.) 

These transactions constituted the people 
of Israel a church, — an organized body of 
professed servants and worshippers of Je- 
hovah. And so they are styled in the New 
Testament. Stephen says of Moses, " This 
is he that was in the church in the wilder- 
ness." (Acts 7 : 38.) And Paul, in his epistle 
to the Hebrews, quotes David, in one of 
the Psalms, as saying, " I will declare thy 
name unto my brethren ; in the midst of the 
church will I sing praise unto thee." (Hebr. 
2 : 12.) And this church, collectively and 
individually, in view of the relation into 
which God had thus taken it to himself, 
was required to be holy, — as really so as 



8 INFANT BAPTISM. 

the church under the Christian dispensa- 
tion : — " Sanctify yourselves, therefore, and 
be ye holy ; for I am the Lord your God," 
— " Ye shall be holy ; for I the Lord your 
God am holy." (Lev. 20 : 7. 19 : 2.) 

But, advancing from this point in the 
history of Israel, to avoid an error, we must 
distinguish between the church and the na- 
tion. By surrounding communities, the 
nation, as a whole, were regarded as wor- 
shippers of Jehovah (just as Christian na- 
tions are regarded by heathen as made up 
of Christians) ; but nothing is more evident 
from their history, than that, for the greater 
part of the time, most of them were not. 

. From the transactions of God with Abra- 
ham, and with his descendents at Sinai, it is 
obvious, that to have been strictly a member 
of the Jewish church, one must not only have 
been circumcised, but have professed to be a 
worshipper of God, and obedient to his re- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 9 

quirements. If an Israelite was not circum- 
cised, he had broken God's covenant, — that 
is, was not in covenant with God; was not a 
member of the church. If, having been cir- 
cumcised, he became an idolater, he was not a 
worshipper of Jehovah, and hence was not a 
member of the church ; and for his idolatry 
he was required to be put to death. In 
completing their national and religious ar- 
rangements, certain feasts and other observ- 
ances were instituted, in which they were 
to profess their adherence to the worship 
and service of God. (See Ex. 34: 18-23, 
and Deut. 26: 1-15.) Those who neglect- 
ed these were not worshippers of Jehovah, 
and, strictly speaking, were not members of 
the church ; they did not belong to the 
company of God's professed people. True, 
the civil and ecclesiastial laws and institu- 
tions of the nation were interwoven with 
each other, and hence the church and 



10 INFANT BAPTISM. 

the nation were intimately connected, — 
more so, probably, than in any civil 
community since. Still, a portion of the 
people were worshippers of Jehovah, and 
cleaved to his ordinances, and another 
portion were not. The former were, in real- 
ity, the church ; the latter did not strictly 
belong to it. Hence Paul says, " They are 
not all Israel which are of Israel ; neither 
because they are the seed of Abraham, are 
they all children." (Rom. 9: 6, 7.) The 
church was in the nation ; but there were 
only a few points in its history in which it 
embraced the nation generally. A few re- 
marks hereafter to be made, will further 
illustrate this point. 

Now it is easy to conceive that the same 
body, regulated by the same general princi- 
ples, but with ordinances and rites accommo- 
dated to materially different circumstances, 
may exist under different dispensations. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 11 

This, we maintain, is the fact. The church, 
under both dispensations, is the same. This 
is evident, — 

1. From the language of prophecy. — The 
predictions which I shall here introduce, are 
only a few of the many which might be 
cited. 

In the forty-fourth and forty-fifth chapters 
of Isaiah, the restoration of the Jews from 
the Babylonish captivity is foretold, and the 
prediction asserts, "But Israel shall be saved 
in the Lord with an everlasting salvation : 
ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded 
world without end." (45 : 17.) This could 
not apply to Israel as a nation, because, as 
a nation, they have been confounded and 
ashamed. It must therefore apply to them 
as a church ; that is, to the church in the 
nation. And it is a solemn assurance that 
the Israelitish church should never be reject- 
ed or destroyed. In the fiftieth and fifty- 



12 INFANT BAPTISM. 

first chapters, the prophet is addressing ex- 
plicitly the people of Israel: " Where is 
the bill of your mother's divorcement." — 
"Look unto Abraham your father, and to 
Sarah that bare you." Continuing his ad- 
dress, but referring undeniably to gospel 
times, he thus commences the fifty-second 
chapter: "Awake, awake, put on thy 
strength, O Zion ; put on thy beautiful gar- 
ments, O Jerusalem, the holy city ; for 
henceforth there shall no more come into 
thee the uncircumcised and the unclean," — 
an evident prediction, not of the ceasing or 
destruction of the Jewish church when 
Messiah came, but of its being purified and 
continued. In the fifty-fourth chapter, per- 
sonifying Israel as a desolate woman, the 
prophet says, " For the Lord hath called 
thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in 
spirit, and a wife of youth, w^hen thou wast 
refused, saith thy God. For a small mo- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 13 

ment I have forsaken thee ; but in great 
mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath 
I hid my face from thee for a moment ; but 
with everlasting kindness will I have mercy 
upon thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer." 
Mark what follows : "For this is as the 
waters of Noah unto me ; for as 1 have 
sworn that the icatcrs of Noah should no 
more go over the earth ; so have I sworn that 
I will not be ivroth ivith thee nor rebuke thee. 
For the mountains shall depart, and the hills 
be removed; but my kindness shall not depart 
from thee, neither shall the covenant of my 
peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath 
mercy on theeT God was wroth with the 
nation and rebuked it. He utterly rooted it 
up, and destroyed it, and scattered its re- 
maining elements to the four winds. This 
assurance, then, applies to the church. For 
a time, before the coming of Christ, God 
hid his face from it. But its perpetu- 



14 INFANT BAPTISM. 

ity and prosperity he here secured with an 
oath. In the fifty-sixth chapter, referring to 
gospel times, the prophet says, " The Lord 
God, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel, 
saith, Yet will I gather others to him, be- 
sides those that are gathered unto him ; " — 
a plain intimation of the continuance of the 
Jewish church, and that the Gentiles were 
to be gathered into it. In the latter part of 
the fifty-ninth chapter, the prophet predicts 
the coming of Christ : " The Redeemer 
shall come to Zion, and unto them that 
turn from transgression in Jacob.'' He then 
breaks out, "Arise, shine; for thy light is 
come, and the glory of the Lord is risen 
upon thee." A body then existing, surely, 
was addressed ; and if any think that it was 
the nation and not the church, let them no- 
tice what follows : " But the Lord shall rise 
upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon 
thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy 



INFANT BAPTISM. 15 

light, and kings to the brightness of thy 
rising. Lift up thine eyes round about and 
see, they come to thee ; thy sons shall come 
from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed 
at thy side. Then thou shalt see, and flow 
together, and thine heart shall be enlarged ; 
because the abundance of the sea shall be 
converted unto thee, and the forces of the 
Gentiles shall come unto thee. — And the 
sons of strangers shall build thy walls, and 
their kings shall minister unto thee : for in 
my wrath I smote thee, but in my favor 
have I had mercy on thee. — Therefore thy 
gates shall not be shut day or night ; that 
men may bring unto thee the forces of 
the Gentiles, and that their kings may be 
brought." All this, as it cannot apply to 
the nation, must apply to the church. And 
a few verses onward it is said, " Whereas 
thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that 
no man went through thee, I will make thee 



16 INFANT BAPTISM. 

an eternal excellency r , a joy of many gener- 
ations" And then again ; " For the Lord 
shall be thine everlasting light, and the days 
of thy mourning shall be ended" — No lan- 
guage could more plainly teach that the 
Jewish church was to be continued under 
the Christian dispensation. 

Other similar predictions could be collect- 
ed in great numbers from this book ; but I will 
introduce only one more. In the sixty-second 
chapter, the prophet, looking forward to the 
new dispensation, predicts that the church 
of God should be called by a new name. 
And then, further on, he says, " Go through, 
go through the gates, prepare ye the way of 
the people [those, who, from 'other nations, 
were to come into the church], cast up, cast 
up the high way ; gather out the stones ; lift 
up a standard for the people. Behold thy 
salvation cometh [He who should save the 
Jewish church] ; behold his reward is with 



INFANT BAPTISM. 17 

him, and his work before him. And thou 
[the Jewish church addressed — thou] shalt 
be called, Sought out, a city not forsaken" 

It would be easy to add other similar 
predictions from Jeremiah and the shorter 
prophets. But these are sufficient. And 
they certainly show that the Jewish church 
was not rejected at the coming of Christ 
and a new one formed. 

2. The same appears from the icork which 
Christ is represented as performing- for that 
church. The natural meaning of the figure 
which his forerunner applied to him, when 
he said, " Whose fan is in his hand, and he 
will thoroughly purge his floor," is, the 
cleansing of the Jewish church ; not its de- 
struction. Isaiah, predicting the coming of 
Christ in the passage, " Unto us a child is 
born, unto us a son is given," represents the 
Messiah as sitting "upon the throne of David, 
and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to 
2 



18 INFANT BAPTISM. 

establish it with judgment and with justice 
from henceforth and forever" (Isa. 9:7), — 
meaning, evidently, that he was to defend 
and perpetuate the Jewish church. In the 
fifteenth chapter of the Acts, the apostle 
James, before the first Christian council, 
speaking of the calling of the Gentiles into 
the church, and referring to a prophecy of 
Amos, says, " And to this agree the words 
of the prophet ; as it is written, After this I 
will return, and I will build again the taber- 
nacle of David which is fallen down ; and I 
will build again the ruins thereof, and I will 
set it up ; that the residue of men may seek 
the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom 
my name is called, saith the Lord who 
doeth these things." The work which 
Christ performed by extending the blessings 
of salvation to the Gentiles, and gathering 
them into the church, is here called, a build- 
ing again of the tabernacle of David — a 



INFANT BAPTISM. 19 

figure obviously meaning the revivifying and 
enlargement of the Jewish church : — and it 
seems to be introduced purposely to guard 
us against the error that he intended to 
destroy that church and constitute another. 
Said Christ to the Scribes and Pharisees, 
" Other sheep I have which are not of this 
fold; them also must I bring ; and they shall 
hear my voice, and there shall be one fold 
and one shepherd." (John 10 : 16.) Christ 
w r as here speaking of his true church, which, 
as we have seen, had existed in the Jewish 
nation. And he teaches us that the work 
which he came to perform, was, to gather 
the Gentiles into it. Said Paul to the 
Ephesian Christians : " Wherefore remem- 
ber, that ye, being in time past Gentiles in 
the flesh, were without Christ, being aliens 
from the commonwealth of Israel, and 
strangers from the covenants of promise : — 
but now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime 



20 INFANT BAPTISM. 

were far off, are made nigh by the blood of 
Christ." The obvious import of this passage 
is, that the converts at Ephesus, by becom- 
ing Christians, had been introduced into the 
Jewish church, and had become partakers of 
the blessings covenanted to them. And as 
the result of his reasoning on this topic, 
within a few verses, the apostle comes to 
this conclusion : " Now therefore ye are no 
more strangers and foreigners, but fellow- 
citizens with the saints, and of the household 
of God ; and are built upon the foundation 
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
himself being the chief corner-stone " ; — 
language which strongly implies the unity 
of the church under both dispensations. 
The same idea was evidently before the 
apostle's mind, when, in the next chapter, he 
says, " That the Gentiles should be fellow 
heirs, and of the same body, and partakers 
of his promise in Christ by the gospel." 



INFANT BAPTISM. 21 

They were to be fellow heirs with some 
previously existing body to which God had 
covenanted blessings capable of being in- 
herited, and were to be partakers in Christ 
by the gospel of the promises made to that 
body : and we have already seen with whom 
the covenant constituting a church was 
formed. 

The work, then, which Christ came to 
perform for the Jewish church was, to purify 
and enlarge it, and bring the Gentiles 
into it. 

3. The continuance of the Jewish church 
appears from the action of the apostolical 
council at Jerusalem^ as recorded in the fif- 
teenth chapter of the Acts. That council was 
called to decide on the question whether the 
Gentile converts should be circumcised, and 
keep the ritual law. After free discussion, 
in which there was some variance of opinion, 
the negative of the question was unanimous- 
ly sustained. 



22 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Now what was the argument by which 
that conclusion was reached ? "Was it that 
the Jewish church, with all its rites and 
ceremonies, had been abolished, and a new 
church established in its stead? If Christ 
had given such instructions, his disciples 
must have known it. And here was the 
time, and this the place, to bring out the 
fact. This would have covered the whole 
ground, and settled the question at once. 
But not a hint of the kind appears. Not 
the slightest intimation was given that it 
was the will of Christ that the old church 
should be regarded as abolished, and a new 
one formed. The inference is plain : no 
such thing had been done. Had the fact 
been otherwise, the calling of that council 
would have been needless. The apostles 
might and would have said to the churches 
they formed, " You have nothing to do with 
the old establishment; it is all done away; 



INFANT BAPTISM. 23 

its rites and observances have ceased ; and 
you are on an entirely new foundation." All 
trouble had thus been spared. 

4. The continuance of the Jewish church 
teas evidently the argument of Paul in the 
eleventh of Romans, He begins with the in- 
quiry, " Hath God cast away his people ? " 
[the Jews.] This he answers with an em- 
phatic negative : < ; God forbid." He then 
proceeds to illustrate the truth thus an- 
nounced. Blindness in part had happened 
to Israel ; they had stumbled and fallen : 
and, in consequence of this, salvation had 
come to the Gentiles. The persons thus re- 
jected, he represented as branches broken off 
from an olive-tree, and the believing Gentiles 
as engrafted in their stead. Now what did 
he mean by " the good olive-tree ? " Not, 
surely, the Jewish nation ; for, becoming 
Christians did not incorporate the Gentiles 
with that. The church, as existing under 



24 INFANT BAPTISM. 

the Jewish dispensation, was evidently in- 
tended. From this, the pious Jews were 
not broken off: and among them, the believ- 
ing Gentiles were grafted in, and partook 
" of the root and fatness of the olive-tree " — 
because " Abraham's seed, and heirs accord- 
ing to the promise," and inheritors of the 
spiritual privileges and blessings covenanted 
to him and his posterity. This is obviously 
the meaning of the passage. 

Should any pretend that the good olive- 
tree is Christ, this equally proves the iden- 
tity of the church under both dispensations, 
since the members of both are represented 
as being in him. The truly pious are never? 
in any age of the world, broken off from 
Christ. It is only those who are nominally 
such. And those whom the apostle repre- 
sents as being broken off were nominally in 
Christ by being nominally in the church. 
But being nominally in Christ now, is being 



INFANT BAPTISM. 25 

nominally in the church. On this ground, 
then, the church is the same under both dis- 
pensations, since the same thing constituted 
membership in the one as in the other. 

These are a few of the arguments which 
prove that the Christian church is a continua- 
tion of the Jewish church. I see not how 
the force of them can be evaded. I see not, 
indeed, how any one, with this question be- 
fore him, can read attentively the book of 
Isaiah, and believe otherwise. Christ, as 
man, was a member of that church. He 
was " made under the law " (Gal. 4:4); and 
" was a minister of the circumcision." (Rom, 
15 : 8.) He submitted to the ordinances of 
that church ; and endorsed its validity. To 
the multitude and his disciples he said : 
" The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' 
seat. All therefore whatsoever they bid you 
observe, that observe and do." (Matt. 23 : 2, 
3.) There were in it, when he came, some 



26 INFANT BAPTISM. 

living members, who " walked in all the 
commandments and ordinances of the Lord 
blameless," and " waited for the consolation 
of Israel." Christ came, as we have seen, 
to enlarge and beautify it. The object of 
his "being made a curse for us," as Paul 
expressly declares, was, " that the blessing 
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles 
through " him. And here we see how it 
was that Abraham became " the father of all 
them that believe." It was not because he 
was the first believer ; for he was not. It 
was not because he was a more eminent 
saint than such men as Enoch and Elijah; 
for we have no reason to regard him as such. 
It was because he was constituted the head 
of the visible church. It was because the 
covenant was made with him which consti- 
tuted the first regularly organized commu- 
nity of God's worshippers, from which all 
others are derived. " He received the sign 






INFANT BAPTISM. 27 

of circumcision," (says Paul,) — "that he 
might be the father of all them that be- 
lieve," both of Jews and Gentiles; — that is, 
the head of the visible church. (Rom. 4 : 11.) 
Let the truth which has now been before 
us be a fixed fact in our minds. And let us 
accustom ourselves to feel and speak of the 
Jewish church with respect. It was God's 
church ; one which he loved ; and for the 
sake of which he reproved kings; and of 
which he said, " Every tongue that shall rise 
against thee in judgment, thou shalt con- 
demn." (Isa. 54: 17.) It was never, as 
some have styled it, a legal church. A legal 
church among those who have sinned is an 
impossibility. The Israelites were no more 
expected to acquire merit before God by re- 
ligious and other observances, than any per- 
son or community now is. The religion of 
a sinner, to be acceptable to God, in any 
age of the world, must embrace the same 



28 INFANT BAPTISM. 

elements. And happy will it be for us, if a 
portion of the piety and grace which adorn- 
ed the worthies of the Jewish church is 
ours. 






CHAPTER II. 

THE CHARTER OF THE CHURCH. — THIS SEALED. 
— THE SEAL CHANGED. 

The church, as we have denned it, is a 
company of persons whom God takes into 
covenant with himself as his professed ser- 
vants and worshippers^ and to whom he stipu- 
lates certain privileges and blessings. — The 
covenant which God made with Abraham, 
by which a church was instituted in his fam- 
ily, is therefore the charter of that church's 
rights. It specifies what he and the church 
thus formed might expect from God by vir- 
tue of that transaction. 

It is, then, an important inquiry (and the 
more so, since, as we have seen, the church 
under both dispensations is the same), What 



30 INFANT BAPTISM. 

blessings did God promise to Abraham? 
What teas embraced in the charter of rights 
given to the church which teas organized 
among his descendants? 

The engagement with Abraham included 
some temporal things ; — such as a numer- 
ous posterity, the possession of the land 
of Canaan by his posterity, and outward 
national prosperity on condition of adhering 
to the divine commands. But the more im- 
portant were spiritual blessings. The first 
recorded specification, which was made 
when he was called to leave his native 
country, was, that he should be a blessing, 
and that in him all the families of the earth 
should be blessed. (Gen. 12: 2, 3.) This 
was a promise of all that grace and favor to 
him and his posterity by which this should 
be accomplished. Some twenty-five years 
afterward, a more formal and solemn en- 
gagement was made. " And — the Lord 



INFANT BAPTISM. 31 

appeared unto Abraham, and said unto him, 
I am the Almighty God; walk thou before 
me, and be thou perfect — and I will estab- 
lish my covenant between me and thee, and 
thy seed after thee in their generations, for 
an everlasting covenant ; to be a God unto 
thee, and to thy seed after thee." (Gen. 
17 : 1, 7.) This covenant was then sealed 
by the institution and performance of the 
rite of circumcision. And of this God said, 
" it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt 
me and you" (v. 11). — Afterward God 
promised him, " In thy seed shall all the na- 
tions of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22: 
18) ; referring, as an apostle informs us, 
specifically to Christ ; and meaning that he 
should come in the line of Abraham's pos- 
terity, and that through him, and the church, 
of which he is the head and the representa- 
tive, the world should be blessed. 

But the point at which the covenant was 



32 INFANT BAPTISM. 

formally announced and sealed, embodies 
the grand transaction. All other things 
were virtually embraced in this, and were 
only specified as defining some of its partic- 
ulars. 

When God thus solemnly engaged to 
Abraham, "I will be a God to thee; " less 
cannot be meant than that God would be 
his spiritual father and friend, and fulfil the 
high import of that sacred relation by im- 
parting to him all needful protection, and 
bestowing upon him all needful grace, for 
time and eternity. The promise was an as- 
surance of his acceptance with God as a 
penitent believer. Hence an apostle says, 
" He received the seal of circumcision, a seal 
of the righteousness of the faith which he had, 
yet being imcircumcised." (Rom. 4: 11.) 
And the promise made to him in behalf of 
his children was the same as that made to 
himself. The same language was used ; and 



INFANT BAPTISM. 33 

no intimation is given that it is employed 
in an inferior sense. And, indeed, the holy 
man would have felt it to be a mockery of 
his highest desires to have temporal bless- 
ings only engaged to his children and pos- 
terity, while spiritual blessings were engag- 
ed to himself. This could not be ; because, 
as the covenant secured the existence of the 
church among his descendants, it secured 
the existence of piety ; for, where the church 
is, there piety must be. The promise, " I 
will establish my covenant between me and 
thee, and thy seed after thee, in their gener- 
ations, for an everlasting covenant; to be a 
God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee," 
was an engagement that they should be 
brought into the same relation to God in 
which himself stood. It was a promise of 
the bestowment upon them of saving grace. 
It could mean nothing less than this. 
Here, indeed, a condition was involved. 
3 



34 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Abraham must be faithful. He must be 
simply and sincerely devoted to God. He 
must be a priest of Jehovah in his house, 
maintaining the worship of God in it, and 
governing his household aright, and instruct- 
ing them in the things of God. And in 
proportion to his fidelity in these respects 
might he claim the fulfilment of the promise 
to his children, in its high spiritual meaning ; 
and through them to succeeding generations. 
It was a promise that God would bless 
his efforts, by the bestowment of saving 
grace upon his offspring, and so downward 
in the line of his posterity. And hence we 
hear God saying of Abraham, " I know him, 
that he will command his children and his 
household after him, and they shall keep 
the right way of the Lord, to do justice 
and judgment, that the Lord may bring 
upon Abraham that which he hath spoken 
of him." (Gen. 18 : 19.) Such was the 



INFANT BAPTISM. 35 

charter of privileges given to the Jewish 
church. 

Another question here arises: Was this 
charter revoked or altered at the commence- 
ment of the Christian dispensation ? — The 
fact, already proved, that the church remains 
the same, is, in itself, presumptive evidence 
that the charter is not annulled ; for, the an- 
nulling or withdrawing of a charter, unless 
a new one is given, dissolves the body which 
it had created. But, has it ceased to be a 
law of God's moral administration, through 
Christ and the church to bless the world ? 
Is it no longer a fact, that God blesses 
children through their parents ? Is not the 
truth written on every page of the church's 
history, that the prayers, instructions, and 
example of pious parents are one of his 
chosen instrumentalities for the conversion 
and salvation of their offspring ? As well 
may we expect the laws of nature to cease 



36 INFANT BAPTISM. 

as that principle to cease, which has run 
through the whole of God's moral govern- 
ment of the world, which he expressed to 
Abraham in the points before us, and which, 
through him, he solemnly covenanted to the 
church. 

But perhaps it is here said, The Jewish 
ceremonial law is abolished, and with it went 
the Abrahamic covenant ; — all these Old 
Testament transactions were swept away. 
Has the law of the ten commandments, then, 
become null and void? And how came 
Paul to say that " Christ was a minister of 
the circumcision for the truth of God, to 
confirm the promises made unto the fathers?" 
and that " all the promises of God in him are 
yea, and in him, Amen, to the glory of God 
by us? " (Rom. 15 : 8, and 2 Cor. 1 : 20.) 
The ceremonial law, indeed, has ceased; but 
the covenant with Abraham formed no part 
of that law. The promise that Christ should 



INFANT BAPTISM. 37 

come and bless the world 3 surely, was no 
part of it. None of the promises made to 
Abraham were any part of it. They were 
as distinct from it as any transaction could 
possibly be. So the apostle reasons in the 
third chapter of Galatians. " Brethren, I 
speak after the manner of men : Though it 
be but a man's covenant, yet if it be con- 
firmed, no man disannulleth or addeth there- 
unto. Now to Abraham and his seed were 
the promises made. He saith not, And to 
seeds, as of many; but as of one, And thy 
seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that 
the covenant which was confirmed before of 
God in Christ, the law, which was four 
hundred and thirty years after, cannot dis- 
annul, that it should make the promise of 
none effect." The reasoning of the apostle 
is, that the law, which was given at Sinai 
430 years after the covenant made with 
Abraham, was an entirely distinct thing, and 



38 INFANT BAPTISM. 

did not, in the least, affect it. That cove- 
nant was confirmed by God in Christ ; and, 
according to the apostle's showing, being 
thus established, could not be disannulled. 
It was God's covenant, and hence unspeak- 
ably more firm and less mutable than any 
human engagement. " The law," he says, 
"was added because of transgression, till 
the seed should come to whom the promise 
was made." (v. 19.) It was added [ap- 
pended] to the promises made to Abraham 
till Christ should come ; and then the cere- 
monial part of it was to be taken away. 
The ceremonial law was the "hand-writing 
of ordinances " which Christ blotted out and 
took away by nailing it to his cross. (Col. 
2 : 14.) It " was added " and " taken away," 
leaving the Abrahamic covenant just as it 
was. That covenant, in all the fulness of 
its promises, is still the rich inheritance of 
the church. It was never God's design, 



IXFAXT BAPTISM. 39 

under the Christian dispensation, to abridge 
the privileges of his people. The very idea, 
that, under a better economy, these were to 
be diminished, is preposterous. Christ did 
not abolish one of the promises made unto 
the fathers. He came to confirm and fulfil 
them — to fulfil some of them in his own 
person, and others in the bestowments of his 
spirit and grace. And the apostle, at the 
commencement of his argument in the third 
of Galatians, is careful to assure us that the 
object of Christ's death was, that the blessing 
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles. 
Christ, he says, " was made a curse for us 
— that the blessing of Abraham might come 
on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ : — that 
we might receive the promise of the spirit 
by faith." Justification by faith, and the 
Spirit to effect all the blessings, personal and 
relative, promised to Abraham, are here an- 
nounced as coming on the Gentiles through 



40 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Christ ; and the design of his death was to 
secure this effect. And hence the conclu- 
sion to which the argument of the apostle 
conducts him : " If ye be Christ's, then are 
ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to 
the promise : " — " heirs " — inheritors of the 
blessings covenanted to him. The charter 
of the church, then, remains unchanged. 

It has been already remarked that the 
covenant with Abraham was sealed by the 
instituting of circumcision. This ordinance 
was commanded to be strictly observed by 
all his descendants. And so important did 
God regard this seal, that he threatened the 
delinquent with being " cut off from among 
his people." (Gen. 17: 14.) 

But why did God affix a seal to his cove- 
nant with Abraham ? and why did he con- 
sider it so important that its neglect should 
incur the forfeiture of the subject's life ? — 
for such is probably the meaning of the 



INFANT BAPTISM. 41 

threatening. (See Ex. 31: 14.) God's 
word of promise, surely, needs no additional 
security. His veracity is not to be doubted. 
The seal was intended to meet an infirmity 
of humanity — to confirm to men God's 
fidelity to his engagements, and remind them 
of implied obligations and duties. God 
knew man's proneness to forget. Even Abra- 
ham needed to have his faith in the divine 
promises strengthened. And his posterity 
would need to be reminded of the solemn 
transactions between God and their progen- 
itor; and of the relation into which they 
were brought to God, and of what he con- 
sequently expected of them. This would 
tend to secure them to»his service ; to re- 
claim them when they wandered; and to in- 
spire them with confidence in his promises 
in seasons of calamity and trial. It was 
given to Abraham for the same reason that 
a token w T as given to Noah and the post- 



42 INFANT BAPTISM. 

diluvian world, that a flood should not 
again destroy the earth. It was given on 
the same principle, that, under the Jewish 
dispensation, types prefigured blessings to 
come ; and, under the Christian, ordinances 
are remembrances and seals of blessings 
bestowed. Every outward institution is 
intended to meet some necessity of our 
nature : and such memorials will be re- 
quisite while that nature remains what it 
has been, and what it is. 

If, then, the covenant with Abraham — 
the great charter of the church's rights — 
remains, a seal is to be expected. It would 
be preposterous to suppose that a covenant, 
once sealed, and atill in force, has had its 
seal removed. When the testimony of 
validity is removed from an instrument, it 
becomes void. Unless, therefore, God is 
less benevolent than he once was — less 
desirous of human welfare — or man has 






INFANT BAPTISM. 43 

become more observant of his Maker's will, 
and needs less reminding; we may be sure 
that his covenant has still a seal. Can we 
for a moment admit, that, under the Chris- 
tian dispensation, faith has less to encourage 
and strengthen it, less to feed and live upon, 
than under the Jewish ? Can we admit that 
it has a narrower range of promise, or less 
security for the fulfilment of divine engage- 
ments? Such a supposition would be at 
w r ar with all the representations of increased 
advantages under the present economy. It 
would be little less than a libel on that dis- 
pensation itself. Or can any pretend that 
parents are so much more careful of the 
religious training of their children as to need 
less reminding; or that they have so much 
more confidence in the fulfilment of God's 
promises than even Abraham had, that they 
need no encouragement from an outward 
and impressive rite? Such inquiries need 
no replies. 



44 INFANT BAPTISM. 

But here it may be asked, If the Abra- 
hamic covenant remains, why is not its 
original seal continued ? I reply : The per- 
petuity of that covenant is unaffected by the 
question whether or not we can see the rea- 
son of the discontinuance of circumcision. 
But further; that rite, though instituted 
long before the giving of ceremonial law, 
had come to be regarded as a pledge to ful- 
fil it. Said Paul to the Galatians, " I testi- 
fy again to every man that is circumcised, 
that he is a debtor to do the whole law." 
(Gal. 5 : 3.) The Judaizing teachers insist- 
ed that unless the Gentile converts were 
circumcised and kept the law of Moses, i. e. 
the ceremonial law, they could not be saved ; 
thus subverting the very foundation prin- 
ciple of the gospel, justification by faith 
in Christ alone. Hence the sharp conten- 
tion which arose respecting this question, 
and the calling of the council at Jerusalem 



INFANT BAPTISM. 45 

to decide it. If the Gentile converts were 
circumcised, they would be virtually prose- 
lyted to the Jewish religion, and be pledged 
to all its observances as requisite for accept- 
ance with God. It hence became indis- 
pensable that circumcision should be laid 
aside. If this was not the only way in 
which the evil could be corrected, it was the 
readiest way, and the one which the Holy 
Ghost designated. And it should be 
specially noticed that this connection be- 
tween circumcision and the ceremonial law 
was the sole ground of argument before the 
council at Jerusalem, and the reason on 
which its decision was based. The question 
was not, Circumcision as the seal of the 
Abrahamic covenant; but, Circumcision as 
connected ivith the Jewish ceremonial law. 
And if any should ask why, if that rite as a 
seal of the covenant had given place to an- 
other, nothing was said about the change, 



46 INFANT BAPTISM. 

we reply: That nothing was said respecting 
this, we do not know. But this was not the 
point at issue ; and, therefore, the brief result 
is silent respecting it. Nor was it needful 
to raise that question, since, as we contend, 
another rite had been substituted, and was 
generally observed. 

This leads us to the next point in order : 
Was the form of the seal of the Abrahamic 
covenant changed at the introduction of the 
gospel dispensation ? — If no other reason 
for such a change had existed but the 
Saviour's foresight of the abuse to which 
circumcision would be subjected, this was 
sufficient. And, further, it is not unnatural 
to expect, that, with the introduction of a 
milder dispensation, and one suited to a 
more highly civilized state of the world, and 
with the ceasing of sacrifices when the great 
sacrifice which they prefigured had been of- 
fered ; all bloody rites would cease, and a 



INFANT BAPTISM. 47 

rite of similar moral significancy would take 
the place of circumcision. A rite of similar 
significance existed ; and had from time im- 
memorial. Those, who, from other nations, 
were proselyted to the Jewish religion, were 
circumcised and baptized, — males submit- 
ting to both rites, and females to the latter. 
The latter rite [baptism] the Saviour 
adopted as a token of discipleship to him, 
by commanding it to be applied to all who 
should embrace the gospel. " Go teach all 
nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost." He thus placed baptism, as an 
initiatory rite, in the same relation to the 
Christian church in which circumcision had 
stood to the Jewish, It became a necessary 
prerequisite to membership. And, to adult 
receivers, it became precisely ivhat circum- 
cision was to Abraham, " a seal of the right- 
eousness of faith" — a seal of acceptance and 
justification by faith. 



48 INFANT BAPTISM. 

In emblematic significancy, circumcision 
and baptism are precisely similar. The 
typical import of circumcision is, the renew- 
al of the heart to holiness — cleansing from 
moral defilement. " Circumcise therefore 
the foreskin of your heart, and be no more 
stiff-necked:" " And the Lord thy God will 
circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy 
seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul." (Deut. 10 : 16. 
30 : 6.) And Paul speaks of the Chris- 
tians at Colosse as u circumcised with the 
circumcision made without hands, in putting 
off the body of the sins of the flesh." The 
typical import of baptism is the same — the 
renewal of the heart to holiness — cleansing 
from the defilement of sin. Hence the fol- 
lowing declarations ; " For as many of you 
as have been baptized into Christ, have put 
on Christ ; " — have become morally like 
him. (Gal. 3: 27.) " Know ye not that so 



INFANT BAPTISM. 49 

many of you as were baptized into Jesus 
Christ, were baptized into his death : " i. e. 
have become dead to sin. (Rom. 6 : 3.) The 
direction of Ananias to Saul expresses the 
typical import of this rite : " Arise, and be 
baptized, and wash away thy sins." (Acts 
22 : 16.) Literal circumcision and literal 
baptism are emblems of spiritual circumcis- 
ion and spiritual baptism. But in the fol- 
lowing passage, the two latter are placed 
before us as being precisely similar in nature 
and effect : " In whom ye are circumcised 
with the circumcision made without hands, 
in putting off the body of the sins of the 
flesh by the circumcision of Christ ; buried 
with him by baptism, wherein also ye are 
risen with him through the faith of the oper- 
ation of God, who hath raised him from 
the dead." (Col. 2: 11,12.) 

These two rites, then, mean the same 
thing; and the latter, by Christ's express 
4 



50 INFANT BAPTISM. 

command, stands in the same relation to the 
Christian church in which the former did to 
the Jewish. But we have seen that the 
church is the continuation of the Jewish 
church. It follows, then, that by Christ's 
express command, baptism takes the place 
of circumcision. It is a token of the same 
covenant and a seal of the same spiritual 
blessings. This result has been reached 
by a process of reasoning which we think is 
legitimate and conclusive. We see not how 
any position we have taken can be disprov- 
ed. And here we might rest the propriety 
of applying baptism to the children of be- 
lievers. But a few additional arguments 
should receive attention ; and some objec- 
tions to the conclusion we have reached de- 
serve to be considered. 



CHAPTER III. 

TWO OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. — FURTHER ARGU- 
MENTS. — THE CONDUCT OF CHRIST AND THE 
APOSTLES. — NO COMPLAINTS FROM CONVERTED 
JEWS. TESTIMONY FROM HISTORY. 

Our inference from the foregoing reason- 
ing is, that, unless a limitation has been 
introduced, the seal of the covenant should 
now be applied as extensively as under the 
former dispensation ; i. e. to the children of 
God's professed people. If the covenant re- 
mains unchanged, the seal, in its new form, 
should be applied by the same rule as be- 
fore, unless a different rule has been in- 
troduced. 

Some pretend that a different rule has 
been given — that the doctrine of the New 



52 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Testament is, that a person must believe 
before he is baptized. In support of this, it 
is said, that the multitude on the day of 
Pentecost were directed : " Repent and be 
baptized every one of you in the name of 
the Lord Jesus ; " " and they that gladly re- 
ceived the word were baptized ; " that Philip 
required faith in the eunuch as a prerequi- 
site to baptism ; and that Lydia, and the 
jailer, and Saul of Tarsus, believed before 
they were baptized. 

All this is true ; but the facts do not touch 
the question of Infant Baptism at all. This 
is easily shown. The missionaries to the 
Sandwich Islands, when those who had been 
trained in heathenism, gave evidence of 
piety, required every one of them to be 
baptized in the name of Christ. And why ? 
Did not those missionaries believe in Infant 
Baptism ? They certainly did. And the 
fact, that, for a number of years, they re- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 53 

quired all the adults who professed faith in 
Christ to be baptized was not, in the least, 
inconsistent with that belief. The reason is 
plain : The gospel was then just intro- 
duced ; and, from the nature of the case, those 
persons could not have been baptized in 
their infancy. Just so it was in the case 
before us. The multitude on the day of 
Pentecost, the eunuch, Lydia, the jailer, 
Saul, and others, could not have received 
baptism, when young, because baptism, as 
a Christian rite, did not then exist : the 
gospel dispensation had just commenced. 
The facts thus adduced to disprove the 
propriety of applying baptism to infants are 
entirely irrelevant. They have not the most 
distant bearing on the question. Admit the 
apostles to have been the firmest believers 
in this doctrine, and they would have done, 
in all these cases, precisely as they did. 
There may, indeed, be a degree of plausi- 



54 IXFAXT BAPTISM. 

bility in the idea of purging the church by 
rejecting infants from the covenant, under 
the pretence that retaining them tends to 
corrupt it by introducing unconverted mem- 
bers. But we deny that Infant Baptism, 
properly understood and practised, has any 
such tendency. The rite, as we shall here- 
after show, does not constitute them 
members; and none are more watchful to 
admit only the converted than those who 
understanding!}- practise it. God's method 
of purifying the church was not to do it by 
reducing the number of his promises. It 
was never his intention to recall some of 
them, and give to faith a narrower scope of 
divine engagements, and less food and en- 
couragement. Such an idea is utterly in- 
consistent with the declaration that all the 
promises are •• Yea." and ••Amen." in Christ, 
and should be at once and forever dis- 
carded. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 55 

In this place it is proper to notice another 
objection to the idea that baptism takes the 
place of circumcision. It is, that, on em- 
bracing Christianity, those who had been 
circumcised were required to submit to bap- 
tism. To this I reply, There was a specific 
meaning in baptism, over and above what 
was implied in circumcision. Circumcision 
was an acknowledgment of Jehovah as the 
only true God, and a profession of subjec- 
tion to him as such in the character of wor- 
shippers and servants. Baptism includes 
all this ; and is also a specific profession of 
discipleship to Christ. It involves a definite 
acknowledgment that Jesus of Nazareth is 
the true Messiah, a profession of faith in 
him as such, and a consecration to his ser- 
vice.* Hence the multitude on the day of 

* Should any suppose that this remark conflicts 
with the application of baptism to infants, it is suf- 



56 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Pentecost were required to be baptized "in 
the name of the Lord Jesus" The converts 
at Samaria also, and Cornelius, and others, 
are said to have been " baptized in the name of 
the Lord Jesus" Not that the name of the 
Trinity was not placed upon them ; but that 
a leading and specific idea was, a profession 
of discipleship to Christ. At the introduc- 
tion of the new dispensation, it was proper 
that the rite of initiation, while it had the 
same emblematic significance as the one 
which preceded it, should imply more, and 
hence be required of those who had submitted 
to the other. Those, generally, who had been 
circumcised, hated and rejected Christ. It 
was therefore proper, that, in a specific rite 
they should be required to acknowledge him 

fieient to reply that the baptism of an infant is an act 
of the parent, and not an act of the child. It implies 
all this in the parent, and a consecration of his child 
to Christ. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 57 

as the promised Messiah, and engage alle- 
giance to him as their rightful sovereign. 
This was God's method of purifying the 
church. By introducing a new test, he vir- 
tually broke off the unfruitful branches, and 
cleansed the church of unworthy members. 
The believing Jews submitted to Christ, and 
believing Gentiles were added ; and thus, 
out of twain, upon the previous foundation, 
was formed a more pure and spiritual body 
than the previous organization had been. 

I now proceed to adduce a few additional 
arguments in support of the sentiment that 
Infant Baptism is an ordinance of the 
gospel. 

1. CJirist and his apostles taught and 
practised just as ive should have expected, 
if children ivere still to be regarded as in 
covenant tvith their parents, and just as ice 
should not have expected on the contrary 
supposition. We should bear in mind that 



58 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Christ and his apostles belonged to a nation, 
who, during their whole history, had been 
taught to dedicate their children to God by 
a solemn religious rite, and this, because, 
with their parents, they were entitled to cer- 
tain specific blessings. These facts were 
associated w r ith all their ideas of true relig- 
ion and the principles of the divine ad- 
ministration. In conformity to an express 
divine injunction, they had been accustomed 
to see Jewish children receive the token of 
the covenant made with their early progeni- 
tor. "When any from among the Gentiles 
were disposed to embrace their religion, 
they had seen the children of such families 
embraced in the covenant transaction by 
which the parents consecrated themselves 
to the service of Jehovah. The practice of 
receiving children with their parents to the 
blessings of the same covenant, was rooted 
in their minds as among the fundamental 
principles of propriety and right. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 59 

Now if Christ intended to introduce a 
new order of things in this respect, it is ob- 
vious that much instruction would have 
been requisite to subdue the prejudices, and 
modify the opinions of his disciples, and 
prepare their minds for so great a change. 
But while he severely criticized the abuses 
which had crept into that dispensation, and 
the principles and practices of the Scribes 
and Pharisees, — while he spared nothing 
which required rebuke or censure, and while 
he carefully taught the disciples the spiritual 
nature of his kingdom ; we hear him giving 
no such instructions, nor even hinting at the 
intention of a change. On the contrary, he 
encouraged the bringing of children to him 
for his blessing, and rebuked those who 
would have hindered the practice, and 
because Zaccheus himself was a son of 
Abraham, pronounced blessings on his fam- 
ily. And after seeing such things in their 



60 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Master, and being reproved by him for an 
unwillingness that children should be 
brought to him, and hearing him declare 
that of such were the kingdom of heaven ; 
would the disciples be likely to infer, that, 
under the Christian dispensation, he intend- 
ed to exclude children from the covenant 
with God into which their parents were 
brought ? And would they not have waited 
for an order from him to inaugurate a 
practice exactly the opposite of that in 
which they had been trained? And, strong 
as were their Jewish prejudices, and slow as 
they were to relinquish the idea of a tem- 
poral kingdom, or yield any of the opinions 
they had cherished ; would not such an 
order, plain and oft repeated, have been 
needful to induce them to regard and treat 
children as no longer in covenant with their 
parents ? Would not such an orde^r have 
awaked strange thoughts in their minds, and 



INFANT BAPTISM. 61 

occasioned conversation and discussion, and 
excited some manifestation of hostility to 
such an arrangement? But no such direc- 
tion appears, nor even an intimation that 
such a change was intended ; nor is there 
anywhere betrayed, in the intercourse of the 
disciples, a hint that such a direction had 
been received. This is just what ice should 
have expected of the Saviour, and thus far 
of the disciples, if children were still to be 
considered as objects of God' s covenant favor; 
and just ivhat ive should not have expected 
if they were not. 

Commissioned by their Redeemer, the 
apostles went forth to propagate his religion. 
The Spirit, which had been promised to 
guide them into all truth, had been given. 
They acted under his guidance. What 
was their practice in relation to the point 
before us ? To adults, they administered 
baptism on a profession of their faith. But 



62 INFANT BAPTISM. 

did they baptize none beside ? This ques- 
tion must be answered by carefully examin- 
ing the history of their proceedings as given 
us by the pen of inspiration. Paul and 
Silas went to Philippi, and preached. Lydia 
was converted. " She was baptized, and 
her household." But nothing is said of the 
conversion of its members. This, had it 
taken place, and almost simultaneously 
with her own, would have been a remark- 
able occurrence, and far more worthy of 
being noted, than the circumstance of their 
baptism. When it is said that the Lord 
opened her heart, why is it not added, "and 
the hearts of her household," if, indeed, the 
fact occurred ? This is not said. But it is 
said that they were baptized. Why the 
record of the less to the omission of the 
greater? Is it assumed that their conver- 
sion is implied in the fact of their baptism ? 
This is assumption without proof. It is 



INFANT BAPTISM. 63 

begging the question at issue. It is no- 
where asserted in the New Testament that 
none but believers are to be baptized. As 
has been before remarked, converts from the 
Gentiles to the Jewish church were received 
with their households. And if no counter 
order had been given, it would have been 
perfectly natural for Paul and Silas to re- 
ceive the household of Lydia with herself. 
All their views of the stability of the cove- 
nant made with their fathers would have 
led to this. Besides, if the whole household 
of Lydia was converted with herself, she 
would have been far more likely to rejoice 
in the wonderful fact, and to speak of it, 
than simply to refer to her own. And yet 
she said to the apostles, " If ye have judged 
me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my 
house, and abide there," — strongly imply- 
ing that she was the only believer in the 
family. If all with herself were believers, 



64 INFANT BAPTISM. 

the strongest inducement which the apostles 
could have had to comply with her invita- 
tion was omitted. And this is the more 
singular, as she had to "constrain" them 
before they consented. To the remark 
sometimes adduced as proof that all her 
household were believers — " And they [the 
apostles] went out of the prison, and enter- 
ed into the house of Lydia ; and when they 
had seen the brethren, and comforted them, 
they departed," it is sufficient to reply, 
No intimation is given that they saw them 
at the house of Lydia, much less that they 
belonged to her family. The meaning is 
simply, that they saw them before they left 
the city. Here, then, is a household bap- 
tized by the apostles without any evidence 
that any but its head was pious, and where 
all the evidence which the Holy Ghost has 
seen fit to give us goes against the idea that 
any but herself had received the Saviour. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 65 

In the same city, Philippi, the jailor, to> 
whose care Paul and Silas were committed, 
was suddenly converted ; and it is said of 
him that he and all his were baptized 
straightway. From its being said that the 
apostles preached " to all that were in his 
house," and that he " rejoiced, believing in 
God, with all his house," some maintain 
that all his household were believers. But 
the language in the original gives a different 
idea. One well qualified to judge says : " If 
there is any ambiguity in this English 
phrase, there is none in the original. It is 
certain from the Greek, as every one ac- 
quainted with the language must perceive, 
that the believing and rejoicing here spoken 
of, being in the singular number^ can refer 
to the jailor only." (Pond on Baptism, p. 
96, Edition of 1833.) — The commentator 
Scott says that the word for believed is sin- 
gular — thus implying that the jailor only 
5 



66 INFANT BAPTISM. 

believed, and that his household were bap- 
tized on the ground of his faith. Mr. Scott 
renders the passage thus, " He [the jailor] 
rejoiced through all his house, having be- 
lieved in God." 

Here, then, is evidence which a mind 
open to conviction and inquiring after truth 
would be slow to disregard, that two house- 
holds were baptized on the faith of their 
heads. The very mentioning, indeed, of the 
baptism of households, is strong presumptive 
evidence that the apostles believed and 
practised infant baptism. The journals of 
missionaries who reject this doctrine may- 
be searched in vain for such records as are 
here made respecting the apostles. And 
knowing, as my readers do, that evangelical 
Christians are divided on this point, were 
they to find, in the journal of any mission- 
ary, of whose opinion in this respect they 
knew nothing, such entries as these : — " A 



INFANT BAPTISM. 67 

certain woman, hearing me preach, believ- 
ed, and I baptized her and her family ; " "A 
man embraced the Saviour, and I baptized 
him and all his," — they would not hesitate 
a moment on which side of the line that 
divides Christians on this subject to rank 
that missionary. Why judge differently of 
the apostles and of him ? Were not the 
apostles inspired men, whose example and 
practice every one wishes should correspond 
with his own views, the fact of their bap- 
tizing households would be deemed good 
reason for believing that they practised in- 
fant baptism. No one would be likely to 
call this in question in the case of any other, 
the record of whose proceedings correspond- 
ed with the record of theirs. The account 
given us of the apostles is just such as ive 
should have expected on the supposition that 
they practised Infant Baptism, and just such 
as ive should not have expected if they did 
not practise it, 



68 INFANT BAPTISM. 

2. If children are not to be retained in cov- 
enant under the Christian dispensation, we 
should have heard loud complaints from the 
converted Jews. — That the children of God's 
peculiar people were entitled to covenant 
blessings with their parents, was a fact 
which had run along the whole history of 
the Hebrew nation, and was strongly as- 
sociated with the religious principles and 
feelings of every Jewish mind. And every 
one, at all acquainted with the history of 
that people, knows that they were peculiar- 
ly tenacious of their rites and ceremonies, 
and strongly opposed to innovation. Mul- 
titudes of them believed, and were brought 
into the Christian church. But conversion 
to Christianity did not free their minds from 
their national prejudices. It was extremely 
difficult for them to indulge the opinion that 
any change was to take place in the customs 
in which they had been trained. They 



INFANT BAPTISM. 69 

were " zealous of the law," and disposed to 
enforce its observance on the Gentile con- 
verts. 

In the new order of things introduced by 
the gospel dispensation, had the children 
been stricken out from their covenant rela- 
tion to God, the change to the Jews would 
have been great. It would have been an 
innovation upon their previous habits of 
thought and feeling to which no Jewish 
mind would have quietly submitted. A 
clamor would have been raised, and discus- 
sion would have been long and sharp ; and 
much opposition would have been manifest- 
ed, before a change could have been effect- 
ed. How is it, then, that we hear not a 
word of such discussion ? How is it that the 
question is not even raised ? When many 
other things are discussed, and deviations 
from the ceremonial law were strenuously 
opposed, by the Jewish converts, how is it 



70 INFANT BAPTISM. 

that not a word is said about this ? Any 
one who can believe that such a change 
could have been effected without a syllable 
of controversy, must be strangely ignorant 
of the strength of Jewish prejudices, or must 
strangely overlook them. The entire silence 
of the New Testament on this subject is 
evidence, which no unbiased mind will feel 
at liberty to disregard, that no such change 
occurred at the commencement of the Chris- 
tian dispensation. 

3. History teaches that Infant Baptism was 
universally practised in the churches soon 
after the apostolic age. — I shall trouble 
the reader with only a few quotations. 
Irenseus, who wrote about sixty-seven years 
after the apostles, and who was a disciple 
of Polycarp, the disciple of John, says, 
" Christ came to save all persons who by 
him are regenerated unto God ; infants and 
little ones, and children and youths, and 



INFANT BAPTISM. 71 

older persons." (Wall, Vol. I. p. 25.) The 
fathers of that day used the term " regener- 
ate " for " baptize " — thus putting the 
thing signified for that which denoted it. 
This was evidently the sense in which 
Irenseus used the word ; for, in relation to 
Christ's command (Matt. 28: 19), he says, 
« When Christ gave his apostles the com- 
mand of regenerating unto God, he said, 
Go teach all nations, baptizing them." Jus- 
tin Martyr (a cotemporary with Irenseus), 
says of certain persons, " They are regenerat- 
ed in the same way of regeneration in which 
we were regenerated ; for they are washed 
with ivater in the name of the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost." (Pond, p. 99.) 
Origen, whose father was a Christian 
martyr, was a very learned man, and flour- 
ished about one hundred and ten years after 
the apostles. He travelled quite extensive- 
ly, and had the best means of knowing 



72 INFANT BAPTISM. 

the practice of the churches. He says, 
" According to the usage of the church, 
baptism is given to infants." Again he 
says, " Infants are baptized for the forgive- 
ness of sins;" and again, " The church had 
a tradition from the apostles to give baptism 
to infants." (Pond, p. 102.) In the year 
253, about 153 years subsequent to the 
apostles, a council of sixty-six bishops was 
convened in Carthage, with the learned 
Cyprian at its head, — a man, who, with 
many others of that day, braved the fires of 
persecution, and finally died a martyr to 
the religion of Christ. Fidus addressed a 
letter to that council, wishing to know 
w 7 hether the baptism of infants should be 
delayed till the eighth day, according to the 
law of circumcision, or might be admin- 
istered at an earlier date. That council 
unanimously decided that it was not need- 
ful to delay it to that time. (Milner's Ch. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 73 

Hist., Vol. I. p. 320.) No question was 
raised whether infants should be baptized. 
This, it seems, no one in that venerable 
body doubted. The point was only, 
whether it was requisite to regard the law 
of circumcision as to the time of admin- 
istering it. That council decided the ques- 
tion submitted to them in the negative ; and 
the whole case shows the opinion of the 
fathers respecting baptism's taking the place 
of circumcision. Augustine, whom Mil- 
ner styles " the great luminary of the cen- 
tury in which he lived," flourished 288 years 
after the apostles. (Pond, p. 106.) He says, 
" The whole church practises infant bap- 
tism ; it was not instituted by councils, but 
was always in use." He also says, " That 
he did not remember ever to have read of 
any person, whether catholic or heretic, who 
maintained that baptism ought to be denied 
to infants." And further, " This the church 



74 INFANT BAPTISM. 

has always maintained." (Dwight's Theo. 
Vol. IV. p. 336.) Pelagius, who was a co- 
temporary with Augustine, " was born in 
Britain, and had travelled through France, 
Italy, Africa Proper, and Egypt to Jerusa- 
lem." (Dwight.) He rejected the doctrine 
of original sin. Augustine urged against 
him the doctrine of infant baptism, inquir- 
ing why, if infants were not sinful, they 
were baptized. Pelagius, of course, had the 
strongest temptation to deny the doctrine 
and practice of infant baptism, if he could. 
But instead of this, he says, " Baptism ought 
to be administered to infants with the 
same sacramental words which are used in 
the case of adult persons." " Men slander 
me, as if I denied the sacrament of bap- 
tism to infants." " I never heard of any 
one, not even the most impious heretic, 
who denied baptism to infants." (Pond, 
p. 108.) 



INFANT BAPTISM. 75 

The apostles were under the special guid- 
ance of the Holy Spirit ; and they practised 
infant baptism, or they did not. There 
must have been uniformity among them : 
and they introduced the practice in the 
churches they instituted ; or they did not. 
Irenseus, the pupil of Polycarp, who had 
been the disciple of John, must have known 
what the instructions and practice of the 
apostles had been ; and yet he testifies for 
infant baptism. So did Origen, Augustine, 
Pelagius, the council of Carthage, and 
others whose testimony might be introduc- 
ed. These witnesses show conclusively 
that infant baptism was universal in the 
church soon after the apostolic age. If, 
then, the apostles did not practise it, a uni- 
versal change must have taken place soon 
after their time. This could not have been 
effected without much discussion. Multi- 
tudes must have seen the innovation ; and 



76 INFANT BAPTISM. 

many would have lifted their voices against 
it. Human nature must have been far 
more pliant then than now, if much warm 
and angry disputing had not occurred. How 
is it, then, that not a syllable of this reaches 
us on the page of history ? How is it, that, 
when other schisms and disputes existed, 
and the record of them is preserved, not a 
word is said about this ? How is it, that in 
a council of sixty-six learned and pious bish- 
ops, only a century and a half after the 
apostles, no one lifted his voice against a 
practice which must have been known to be 
against apostolic instructions and usage, if 
the apostles did not believe and practise in- 
fant baptism ? And how is it that such 
men as Origen and Pelagius never heard, 
not simply of any church, but of any 
individual, who denied the propriety of 
infant baptism ? If these are reliable testi- 
monies (and we are not aware that any 



INFANT BAPTISM. 77 

attempt has ever been made to disprove 
them), the inference is unavoidable, that the 
apostles taught and practised infant bap- 
tism.* 

I close this point of the argument by a 
quotation from the late learned Dr. Dwight. 
" A person who employed himself extensive- 
ly in examining this subject, gives the fol- 
lowing result of all his inquiries. First. 
During the first 400 years from the forma- 
tion of the Christian church, Tertullian only 
urged the delay of baptism to infants, and 
that only in some cases ; and Gregory only 

* Infant baptism has been denied to exist in the 
early ages of the church, and arguments have been 
employed to sustain the denial. The testimony of 
these fathers has been ignored ; but I am not aware of 
any attempt to disprove it. It stands on the page of 
history ; and there it will stand, an unanswerable proof 
of the usage of the churches which the apostles and 
their successors planted. 



78 INFANT BAPTISM. 

delayed it, perhaps, to his own children. 
But neither any society of men, nor any in- 
dividual, denied the lawfulness of baptizing 
infants. — Secondly. In the next 700 years, 
there was not a society nor an individual 
who even pleaded for this delay ; much less 
any who denied the right or the duty of in- 
fant baptism. — Thirdly. In the year 1120, 
one sect of the Waldenses declared against 
the baptism of infants, because they suppos- 
ed them incapable of salvation. But the 
main body of that people rejected the opin- 
ion as heretical; and the sect which held it 
soon came to nothing. — Fourthly. The next 
appearance of this opinion was in the year 
1522." He adds: "Had the baptism of 
infants ever been discontinued by the 
church, or had it been introduced in any age 
subsequent to that of the apostles, these 
things could not have been, nor could the 
history of them been found." (Vol. IV. p. 
337.) 



INFANT BAPTISM. 79 

Let us now glance at the points which 
have been proved, — and proved, we think, 
beyond the power of successful refutation : 
— The Christian church is a continuation 
of the Jewish church ; — The charter of the 
church's privileges was not annulled or alter- 
ed at the commencement of the Christian 
dispensation, — it embraced children before, 
and it embraces them still ; — At the change 
of dispensations, baptism, as the seal of the 
covenant, succeeded to circumcision ; — We 
hence need no special command to baptize 
infants — the command, " Go teach all na- 
tions, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," since 
no qualification or restriction was intro- 
duced, involves the duty. We have seen 
that Christ and his apostles acted just as we 
should have expected them to act if they be- 
lieved that children were still to be regarded 
as embraced in the covenant made with 



80 INFANT BAPTISM. 

their parents, and were to receive the seal 
of that covenant; — That the rejection of 
children would have produced loud com- 
plaints from the converted Jews, whereas 
not a whisper of such complaint appears ; — 
and, That history shows the universal prac- 
tice of infant baptism in the churches soon 
after the apostolic age. 

What more proof do we want that Infant 
Baptism is an ordinance of the gospel ? 
What more can any reasonable person ask ? 
We hope, then, to be excused from the 
charge of bigotry or undue positiveness 
while we express the feeling that the doctrine 
rests on the sure foundation of the word of 
God, and will there remain, unmoved by all 
the power which may be arrayed against it. 



CHAPTER IV. 

RELATION OF BAPTIZED CHILDREN TO THE 
CHURCH. — UTILITY OF INFANT BAPTISM ; — IT 
TENDS TO INCREASE THE FAITHFULNESS OF 
PARENTS — TO SECURE TO CHILDREN THE 
PRAYERS AND COUNSELS OF THE CHURCH — 
AND TO SOOTHE THE GRIEF OCCASIONED BY 
THEIR DEATH. 

Having, as we think, fairly and conclu- 
sively established the doctrine of Infant 
Baptism, the question naturally arises, 
" What is the relation of baptized children 
to the church ? " Are they strictly and 
properly members, entitled to its peculiar 
ordinances and privileges ? Since, in estab- 
lishing this doctrine, we reason from the 
former dispensation, it may be thought 
6 



82 INFANT BAPTISM. 

that, without any other qualification, they 
should come to the Lord's table. To this 
I reply, that analogy, which, at first sight, 
may be thought to lead to this conclusion, 
sustains the opposite. It has been already 
shown that the Jewish church was not strict- 
ly national, and that only at a few points in 
its history did it embrace the entire nation. 
Something more than circumcision was re- 
quisite to constitute a member of that church. 
A person must be — and, by his own act, 
he must profess to be — a worshipper of 
Jehovah. All Jewish males were required 
to attend the three great national feasts, and 
there present offerings to God, and worship. 
(See Deut. 16: 16. 26: 10.) Obedience 
to this requirement was a practical personal 
profession that one was a worshipper and 
servant of Jehovah. If he refused thus to 
do, he virtually separated himself from the 
company of God's worshippers, or rather, 



INFANT BAPTISM. 83 

did not join himself to it — was not in form 
or in fact, truly and strictly a member of 
that church. The passover, it will be re- 
membered, was one of those feasts, and was 
forbidden to be eaten at any place except at 
the tabernacle or temple. The injunction 
was, " Thou mayest not sacrifice the pass- 
over within any of thy gates which the Lord 
thy God giveth thee ; but at the place which 
the Lord thy God shall choose to place his 
name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the pass- 
over." (Deut. 16 : 5, 6.) Those who did 
not go up to the feasts, and profess them- 
selves the worshippers of Jehovah, were 
thus forbidden to eat it. The practical pro- 
fession of being his worshippers must be 
made by going up to the feast, before the 
privilege could be enjoyed. — St. Luke says 
that Christ went up to the passover at 
Jerusalem, with his parents, when he was 
twelve years old, " after the custom of the 



84 INFANT BAPTISM. 

feast." (Luke 2 : 41, 42.) And the state- 
ment of commentators, such as Calvin, Bp. 
Patrick, Poole, Rosenmuller, and others, is, 
that children at the age of twelve years were 
brought by their parents to the temple ; and 
from that time, they began to eat the pass- 
over and other sacrifices. Bloomfield says : 
" The custom was, not to take them to the 
passover, until they should have attained 
the age of puberty, a period which the Rab- 
bins tell us was fixed at the twelfth year, 
when they were held amenable to the law, 
and were called sons of precept. They 
were then also introduced into the church, 
initiated into its doctrines and ceremonies, 
and consequently w T ere taken, with their 
relatives, to Jerusalem at the festivals." Dr. 
Gill, a learned Baptist commentator, says 
(on Luke 2 : 42) : " According to the maxims 
of the Jews, persons were not obliged to the 
duties of the law, or subject to the penalties 



INFANT BAPTISM. 85 

of it in case of non-performance, until they 
were, a female, at the age of twelve years 
and one day, and a male, at the age of thir- 
teen years and one day." He adds, as his 
own comment on the passage : " They were 
not properly under the law until they arriv- 
ed at that age ; nor were they reckoned 
adult church-members till then, nor then 
neither, unless worthy persons : for so it is 
said, c he that is worthy, at thirteen years of 
age, is called a son of the congregations,' 
that is, a member of the church." 

We see, then, to what conclusion the 
argument from analogy conducts us. There 
is no rule which entitles baptized children 
to the peculiar privileges and ordinances of 
the church, till they publicly profess faith in 
Christ. They are brought only within the 
outer enclosure of the church, and, through 
the covenanted mercies of God, are peculiar- 
ly its hope. 



86 INFANT BAPTISM. 

We now proceed to another topic, — The 
utility of Infant Baptism. Every divinely 
instituted ordinance is founded upon prin- 
ciples of our nature which created a ne- 
cessity for its existence, and render it, when 
rightly understood and practised, highly 
beneficial. This, we think, is eminently 
true of the ordinance we are now consider- 
ing. 

It is scarcely needful to premise, that an 
important part of the Divine plan is to per- 
petuate and promote religion in the world 
by means of parental instruction and in- 
fluence. Every reader of the Bible must be 
aware of this. Numerous injunctions, both 
in the Old and New Testament, teach the 
important truth. The fact, too, is written 
upon the very constitution of our natures. 
In our younger years, we instinctively cher- 
ish feelings of respect toward those who sur- 
round us with the arms of parental affection 



INFANT BAPTISM. 87 

and kindness. We look to them for instruc- 
tion and guidance ; and our plastic natures 
are moulded materially by their agency 
upon us. The principles which they instil 
sink deep in our memories, and outlive 
many subsequent impressions. The effects 
of our early training remain with us, and 
generally do more than any other cause, and, 
probably, more than all other causes, to 
frame our characters, and point out, like the 
finger of an index, our future and final des- 
tinies. 

The parental relation was instituted, and 
the affections it involves bestowed, — not 
that the body simply, nor yet the mind in 
its temporal relations, should be the chief 
object of solicitude and care, — but that so- 
licitude for the welfare of the undying spirit 
should be cherished, and that the instruction 
should be given, and the influence exerted, 
which, with the blessing of God, will cause 



88 INFANT BAPTISM. 

the principles of holiness to spring up with- 
in, and advance in strength to the govern- 
ment and sanctification of the soul, and to 
its ultimate perfection and felicity in heaven. 
And here, as in every other undertaking, 
success will, in general, be proportioned to 
the diligence and faithfulness with which 
the means are employed. The parent who 
feels his responsibility, and labors and prays 
to be qualified to meet it, and carefully and 
diligently imparts instruction to his tender 
charge, and fervently seeks the Divine bless- 
ing upon them, and accompanies his efforts 
with a godly example in other respects, will 
be instrumental of their salvation. He is 
sowing seed in a susceptible soil ; and, as 
surely as the husbandman reaps a harvest 
as the result of his toil, will a rich harvest 
unto eternal life be realized from the germs 
of truth and holiness which he deposits. 
He shall ultimately appear before the throne 



INFANT BAPTISM. 89 

of God, with unspeakable joy, surrounded 
by those for whom he has toiled and wept. 
On the contrary, if he is negligent, his off- 
spring may rise into life without those im- 
pressions of truth which their state and ne- 
cessities require, may pass through the years 
allotted them on earth without religion, and 
may be found on the left hand at the day 
of final account. This is as certain as that 
the neglect of means in any other depart- 
ment of the divine government will result in 
the failure of the ends which means are in- 
tended to secure. Means and ends, in the 
government of God, have a sure connection. 
And they are no more surely connected in 
any other department than in the moral and 
spiritual. Here it is more certain than in 
any other, that " whatsoever a man soweth, 
that shall he also reap." 

It follows, that whatever tends to promote 
faithfulness in the religious education of 



90 INFANT BAPTISM. 

children, tends to their salvation and to the 
promotion of piety in the world. Here, 
then, is my first argument for the utility of 
the doctrine and practice of Infant Bap- 
tism : — 

It tends to increase parental faithfulness in 
the religious instruction and training of chil- 
dren. 

No man is so ignorant of the principles of 
our nature as entirely to discard the use of 
forms. In pecuniary affairs, why is a 
promise or a note better than a simple 
purpose of the mind ? and why is a written 
agreement better than a mere understand- 
ing ? An important part of the benefit is, 
that the act of thus formally binding in- 
creases a sense of obligation. 

On this principle — the usefulness of 
forms — God has dealt largely with our 
race from the beginning. The patriarchs 
and the Israelites were more likely to feel 



INFANT BAPTISM. 91 

their guilt and their desert at the divine 
hand when they saw the sacrifice offered to 
expiate their guilt, first bleeding and then 
smoking upon the altar, than if no such rite 
had been instituted. The Jewish parent, as 
he saw the painful ceremony which the law 
required, administered to his child, would 
be more likely to feel, than he otherwise 
would have been, that that child possessed 
a corrupt nature, which needed to be taken 
away, and corrupt passions and affections 
which it might cost painful effort to mortify 
and exterminate. So, under the Christian 
dispensation, the ordinance of the Supper 
was instituted, and attendance on it requir- 
ed, because the solemnity of the service 
tends to bring near to the mind, and impress 
on the heart, the important truths which 
cluster round the cross of the expiring Sav- 
iour. One reason, why the act of outward- 
ly and solemnly covenanting with God in a 



92 INFANT BAPTISM. 

public profession of religion is a duty, is, 
that it tends to impress on the mind one's 
obligations to be God's, and to live for him 
in the world. The outward offering of 
prayer is better than the mere desires of the 
heart, because it tends to fix the thoughts 
and add intensity to the desires. Public 
worship is a duty, because its several forms 
tend to beget and foster in the soul the feel- 
ings of devotion. And he who fancies that 
one may be just as good a Christian without 
outward forms — without prayer, without 
public worship, without open profession and 
attendance on special ordinances — as with 
them, is astonishingly ignorant or careless 
or perverse. He applies a principle in the 
high concerns of religion which he knows to 
be unsound, and which he would not trust 
in any other department. 

On the same ground of utility, which 
underlies other religious ordinances, do we 



INFANT BAPTISM. 93 

maintain that Infant Baptism is impressive- 
ly significant and highly salutary. In this 
rite, the parent is solemnly reminded that in 
his child (so young, perhaps, as to be almost 
unconscious of its own existence), are wrap- 
ped the germs of immortality, that these will 
be developed and matured, and that heaven 
or hell will be the certain and amazing issue 
of its individual being. He is reminded of 
the pollution of its nature, — that from its 
earliest infancy it needs cleansing, and 
must have it, or never be admitted to 
heaven. He is reminded that the little crea- 
ture whose very being twines so strongly 
around his heart is not his, but God's, — 
that his Creator claims it as his own peculiar 
property, and commits it to him to be cared 
for and trained with special reference to his 
service and kingdom both here and here- 
after. He is thus reminded of his solemn 
responsibility — that if he is faithful in 



94 INFANT BAPTISM. 

prayer and effort — if he guides and guards 
and instructs, and pleads for, his now help- 
less offspring as he should, its usefulness 
and blessedness will be the happy result; 
and if he is negligent, disaster and ruin, here 
and hereafter, may be the consequence. He 
is also reminded of God's promised aid to 
his endeavors, and the certainty of success, 
if his efforts are made in humble and perse- 
vering faith. 

Fix your eye, then, upon a parent who 
has recently received the precious gift of a 
" second self." See him bringing this ob- 
ject of his tenderest affection into the house 
of God, before a solemn assembly of wor- 
shippers, that he may consecrate it to the 
Lord and Saviour to whom he has given 
himself. The solemnity of the duty presup- 
poses the existence of thought and prayer 
respecting his obligations, and the necessi- 
ties and destiny of his child. He brings it 



INFANT BAPTISM. 95 

and devotes it to God, and prays for its ac- 
ceptance, and for the bestowment upon it of 
the purifying influences of the Spirit so im- 
pressively signified by the ordinance admin- 
istered. He enters into solemn covenant 
with God respecting that child. He pledges 
himself, there, in the presence of God and 
his people, to train and educate that child 
for Christ, — that the instructions he gives 
in any thing useful, and the privileges and 
advantages he procures for it, shall be with 
the express design of fitting it to be a good 
and useful subject of His kingdom. He 
pledges his own daily, humble, earnest, per- 
severing prayers to God in its behalf, and 
that he will store its opening mind with 
divine truth, and surround it with motives 
to godliness. And he takes hold of God's 
covenant engagements to bless his efforts 
and save his child. 

Now we ask, will all this have no good 



96 INFANT BAPTISM. 

effect upon a Christian parent's heart ? Can 
he have distinctly placed before his mind, 
and pressed upon his heart, all the solemn 
truths and facts involved in this ordinance, 
and pass from such a scene with no increas- 
ed impression of the state and necessities 
of his child, and his own responsibilities and 
duties ? Will he be moved to no more ear- 
nestness of prayer by having an ordinance 
indicative of its true relation to the govern- 
ment of God, placed, as it were, at the very 
threshold of its being ? Will he be stimulat- 
ed to no more diligence of effort by thus 
seeing how much depends on him, and w T hat 
he has solemnly engaged to do? And will 
his faith derive no encouragement and 
strength from God's promised assistance, 
assured to him in the covenant of which he 
has taken hold ? To say that all this is use- 
less, is to contradict some of the plainest 
principles of our nature. It is not useless. 



INFANT BAPTISM. 97 

When properly understood and performed, 
it cannot be. The parent, who, with a right 
apprehension of the nature of the transac- 
tion, and with true piety of feeling and pur- 
pose, thus consecrates his child, is benefited 
himself by being brought into a closer cov- 
enant relation to God, and by being render- 
ed more faithful in duty ; and the richest 
blessings will result to the precious object 
of his affection and solicitude. And to ob- 
ject to the utility of this ordinance by say- 
ing that the happy results, as here indicated, 
are seldom, if ever, fully seen, would be just 
as valid as to object against the Lord's sup- 
per by saying that it exerts not all the in- 
fluence on Christian hearts and lives which 
it should. The very fact that there is ground 
for such an objection against Infant Bap- 
tism, shows the necessity of such an insti- 
tution. It shows that parents need all the 
helps to faith and duty which the ordinance 
7 



98 INFANT BAPTISM. 

involves. At best, they are apt to be forget- 
ful and negligent. At best, too many of 
their children perish through their neglect. 
God foresaw the necessities of the case, and, 
in mercy to them and their offspring, institu- 
ted an ordinance most happily calculated 
to help their infirmities, and lead to blessed 
results. 

2. Infant Baptism tends to procure for 
children the prayers and pious co-operation 
of the church. Few things are more solemn 
and impressive than to see a little infant, 
scarcely conscious of its own existence, pub- 
licly presented to God in this ordinance, 
and then to have the prayers of the whole 
congregation centred on the spiritual and 
immortal welfare of that tender and beauti- 
ful object. "Who that has any sense of the 
worth and importance of religion, or any 
belief in God as a hearer of prayer, would 
not value an interest in such supplications 



INFANT BAPTISM. 99 

in behalf of his own children ? Any Chris- 
tian, surely, has few parental sympathies 
whose heart is not warm, and his supplica- 
tions fervent, on such an occasion. And 
the ear of Him who said, " Suffer the little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them 
not," must be open to such requests. Few 
petitions accord better w T ith the tenderness 
of his nature as thus expressed, or are more 
sure to receive answers of peace. 

But the influence of infant dedication 
ends not with the act or the hour of its per- 
formance. That which tends to strengthen 
the faith, and encourage the hope, and 
stimulate the effort, of individual parents, is 
a blessing to the church as a w 7 hole. And 
we hazard nothing in saying that those 
churches which place the highest and most 
enlightened estimate on Infant Baptism, 
pray most, and most fervently, for the chil- 
dren of the church. They view the offspring 



100 INFANT BAPTISM. 

of the household of faith as standing in a 
covenant relation to God and the church, 
and the body as being the depositary of 
promises and blessings in their behalf, and 
as sustaining an important responsibility 
respecting their character and destiny. If 
they see such children entering the paths of 
vice or error, they feel an additional induce- 
ment, and a stronger obligation, to admon- 
ish and save them from ruin. The con- 
sciences of children, too, by proper instruc- 
tion may be made to feel that the fact of 
having been consecrated to God is incon- 
sistent with indulgence in carelessness, folly, 
and sin ; and imposes upon them increased 
obligation to second the wishes of their 
pious and anxious parents by consecrating 
themselves to Christ. And we believe that 
the time is coming when Christians will 
better understand, and more deeply feel, the 
duties and obligations involved in infant 



INFANT BAPTISM. 101 

dedication, and will be more faithful to 
Christ and his cause in this respect; and 
that, as a consequence, children will be con- 
verted while young ; and that thus the glo- 
rious period will be introduced when "all 
shall know the Lord from the least to the 
greatest." 

3. The act of ^ivin^ children to God in 
baptism tends to soothe a parent's heart, if 
called to lay them in an early grave. Many 
a father and mother, as they have stood by 
the bedside of a dying child, have been 
quieted into sweet submission to the divine 
will, by remembering the consecration of it 
to God which they made in baptism. They 
then surrendered it to him, as its Creator 
and Sovereign ; and it is his. Strong as 
may have been their desires for its recovery, 
they have felt that it belonged not to them 
to dictate whether he should restore or re- 
move it. They have keenly felt the rod, 



102 INFANT BAPTISM. 

but have kissed it, and bowed, and from the 
heart have said, " Thy will be done." 

The writer here speaks from experience. 
In troubles of this kind (and often has the 
bitter cup been put into his hand — and he 
cannot pen this remark without pausing for 
a tear over recollections of the past), he has 
experienced consolation from the fact of 
having given his children to God in bap- 
tism. At such times he has felt that the 
ordinance is a blessed privilege. When he 
has looked on a dying child, it has calmed 
an almost bursting heart to remember that 
the child was not his — that he did surrender 
it to God in that specific and solemn act. 
Thousands of parents have felt the same. 
Rightly understood and practised, the act of 
dedicating children to God is full of heaven- 
ly consolation. It is fraught with many 
advantages while children live ; it yields 
sweet peace and comfort if they die. Eter- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 103 

nity alone can unfold what benefits it has 
conferred on parents ; and how many chil- 
dren, by the influences it involves, have been 
rescued from sin, and raised to the felicities 
and honors of heaven. 

Such are some of the benefits of Infant 
Baptism. It is infinitely too sacred and im- 
portant ever to be treated with lightness. 
Every Christian parent should cleave to it, as 
of inestimable value ; and he should pray 
for grace to realize upon himself and his off- 
spring the fulness of its blessings. 

The eyes of some, who have thus conse- 
crated their children to God, will fall on 
these pages. That act, my friends, was only 
the commencement of your duty. In a 
solemn covenant transaction, you gave them 
to God, and solemnly pledged yourselves to 
a faithful endeavor to train them for Him. 
Think often of the engagement which you 
bound upon your souls, and how much it 



104 INFANT BAPTISM. 

constantly requires of you. Think much of 
the consequences connected with fidelity or 
neglect. God is faithful to his promises ; 
and you may expect success, if you address 
yourselves, humbly and earnestly, to your 
work. The prospect of success should fire 
your hearts and inspire your endeavors ; for, 
w^hat greater blessedness can you have than 
to appear before the throne at length, sur- 
rounded by the objects of your tenderest af- 
fection. Thousands of children will bless 
God forever for the prayers and faithfulness 
of their parents. How delightful the thought 
that yours — all of them — may be of this 
happy number. Labor and pray, with 
constant and tearful assiduity, that so it 
may be. The*blessedness of the result will 
more than repay all your anxiety and toil. 

Multitudes of children will find their por- 
tion with " hypocrites and unbelievers," be- 
cause the unfaithfulness of their parents 



INFANT BAPTISM. 105 

suffers them to perish in their sins. The 
hallowed paternal influences, which would 
reclaim and save them, are wanting ; and 
they go down to the abodes of darkness as 
the natural result of their own transgres- 
sions. Many of these, it is feared, will go 
from the families of professedly pious 
parents. Many more will go from families 
whose heads are not pious. Do I address 
any parents of the latter class ? I pray you, 
respected friends, to remember that the same 
great duties grow out of the relations sub- 
sisting between you and your children, as 
result from those existing between the relig- 
ious and their offspring. The same conse- 
quences, also, are connected with fidelity or 
neglect. Slumber not over the pressing ne- 
cessities of your offspring. Their souls are 
infinitely precious ; and the same agencies 
and influences are requisite for their salva- 
tion as are needful for that of others. If 



106 INFANT BAPTISM. 

you have any care for their immortal wel- 
fare, give yourselves to Christ, and com- 
mence the labor you have too long neglect- 
ed. The connection between you and your 
children will be endless in its consequences. 
Oh, think of this. Ponder it well. There 
is no escaping from the solemn fact. Awake, 
then, to your own necessities and theirs. 
Pray for them. Pray with them. Instruct 
and exhort them, and do what you can to 
bring them to Christ. God may bless the 
effort, and give you cause of everlasting 

joy- 
Many of the dear children who constitute 

our Sabbath Schools are the subjects of 
pious parental solicitude and care. Not a 
few of you, young friends, have been devot- 
ed to God in that solemn rite which we 
have now considered. Have you devoted 
yourselves ? Should you not ? What more 
reasonable than that those who have receiv- 



INFANT BAPTISM. 107 

ed so many instructions, and for whom so 
many prayers have been offered, should give 
the morning of their days to Christ? God 
has brought you into a peculiar relation to 
himself and his church, and surrounded you 
with many influences to draw you toward 
himself and heaven. Yield to their sweetly 
constraining power, and give your hearts to 
Him who died to cleanse them with his 
blood. 

There is no more beautiful sight on earth 
than to see the young turning to the Lord. 
And if any of you have not pious parents 
to feel and labor for your good, the Saviour's 
arms are, notwithstanding, open to receive 
you. To you, his invitation is, " come unto 
me, and I will cleanse and guide and save 
you. 5 ' There is room enough in heaven for 
you. There angels wait to rejoice over your 
repentance, and to welcome you among the 
followers of the Lamb. If your parents 



103 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



pray not for you. pray the more earnestly 
for yourselves. If they care not for your 
souk, you should feel the deeper solicitude, 

and exercise the greater care yourselves, 
We know not how many may have felt 
their way alone to heaven. May the Lord 
enable you to reach that happy place! 

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